"I take offense at you calling it a necklace. It's a whistle," Harbaugh said to a round of laughter in the ballroom of the team's hotel. "A coach should go to practice with a whistle and I just clip a pen on it. It's really not complicated at all."

Actually, it is.

Fact is, no one has ever seen him use the marker. At least not that they can remember.

"No, I've never seen him use it. I haven't," fullback Bruce Miller said. "He's got everything written down already."

Added offensive guard Alex Boone, "Oh man, you think it's a fake Sharpie? I've never seen him use it, now that I think about it. You know what, I'm going to ask him. I'll get the answer for you."

If the San Francisco 49ers win the Super Bowl, what will the NFL championship mean for the legacy of young QB Colin Kaepernick, second-year head coach Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers franchise as a whole?

Well, part of the answer is Harbaugh is a stickler for consistency in his wardrobe. He wears khaki pants, a black Niners sweatshirt and a black hat with the team's logo on the front. That's the Harbaugh uniform. He was wearing the same outfit the past two days at his press conference.

"He sticks to his fashion pretty well," cornerback Tarell Brown said. "We tease him about it sometimes, but that's how Coach is. He's straight to the 'T' and that's the way we like it."

Harbaugh often wears a blue-collared shirt underneath the black sweatshirt to represent his blue-collar mentality.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the clue to the meaning of the Sharpie.

"You know what, I do know what it is. I know what it's for," Miller said, suddenly recalling the relevance. "You've seen the blue collar stuff? He wears it every day. And the pen was kind of like the tire gauge pump thing. The pen is his utensil. That's what it is."

Miller has solved the mystery.

"I cracked the code. I remember him telling me that," Miller said. "I've never seen him use it, but that's what it is."

A look back through the San Francisco 49ers' season and their path to Super Bowl XLVII

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Week 1

30-22 win at Green Bay

The 49ers opened the season with a well-rounded win at Lambeau Field. Alex Smith bounced back from his rough outing in last season's NFC title game, while San Francisco racked up 186 yards rushing and kept pressure on Aaron Rodgers all day.

In a rematch of last season's NFC title game, the Giants prevailed again, as San Francisco was shut out after grabbing a 3-0 lead in the first quarter. Alex Smith was yanked for Colin Kaepernick after throwing three interceptions, and the 49ers could only muster 80 yards on the ground.

San Francisco held Arizona to seven rushing yards and Alex Smith was nearly perfect, throwing just one incomplete pass on the day. Arizona didn't score until kicking a field goal with less than a minute to play.

With a 24-21 lead at the half, Colin Kaepernick and San Francisco broke loose in the second half. Highlighted by the quarterback's 56-yard touchdown run. The 49ers finished with 579 yards of total offense and 323 on the ground.

The 49ers fell behind 17-0 just seconds into the second quarter, cut it to 17-14 and headed to the break down 24-14. Two Frank Gore touchdown runs in the second half gave San Francisco the lead, and stopped the Falcons' potential game-winning drive to book a trip to the Super Bowl.